Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Archive 25

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Closing punctuation.

I'd like to propose changing one of the entries on the page and the guideline associated therewith. Currently we have:

  • Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments. When the entry forms a complete sentence, do not include commas or periods at the end of the line.

I would propose replacing it with something along the lines of:

  • Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments.
  • The closing punctuation of an entry, if any, should be consistent; no punctuation at all is usually preferred, but if periods or semicolons are used, they should be used for all entries on the page.

First off, I'll say that just as a stylistic thing, I prefer periods. Ideally, disambiguation pages should be kind of like a "construct your own sentence" exercise; "Thingamajig may mean (in world music) Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos." You should end up with grammatical sentences and the like by jamming the specific entry fragment with the header. If we're following the rules for sentences, why drop the period? Plus, it's usually a standard to signify the end of a list entry somehow; usually semicolons are used, but I've seen periods before, too.

That said, that is entirely a stylistic complaint, and if that was the whole of my difference with the current policy, I would not be posting here. I think that there is a very solid reason for formally allowing periods. The problem is when the simple fragment is insufficient, and further sentences are required. If we have to go beyond the initial fragment but can't put a period on the end, we might be left with the somewhat silly looking:

Example can refer to:

  • Example (disambiguation), an example fragment. This is sentence one explaining why periods are sometimes necessary. This is sentence two which looks cut off

If we add a period there, then we basically have a three sentence construct that tells us about that example. Without the period, it just looks bizarre; it'd still look bizarre with only one extra sentence.

Normally I'm a bit nervous about mentioning actual pages here for fear someone will see them and "fix" them, but here's one I looked at recently (it was in disambig-cleanup) that might serve as a passable example: Force (disambiguation) (Yes, it's a bit odd in some other ways, like with the three primary meanings, but the general idea of "multiple sentence" entries is there).

  • Proof by exhaustion, also known as the "brute-force" method. A proof by exhaustion simply examines all possibilities.

Simply calling it a "proof technique" seemed a bit stingy when a short explanation makes it immediately clear.

Another example is for "Mini explanation headings." You can see an example of that at Bit (disambiguation), which I did some vague work on some time ago, but somebody else brought into stricter conformance with the standard (not that I'm complaining, mind!). Even in his version (which omits periods at the end), he kept a brief intro section that was in the (fragment. sentence*.) style:

  • Any of several relatively small pieces of metal or other hard material fitted to a larger tool for drilling or shaping material, or manipulating small parts or fasteners. They are often interchangeable for different desired sizes and shapes.
    • Drill bit, fitted to a rotary drill and used to drill holes
    • Screwdriver bit, used to fasten screws
    • Tool bit, a high speed steel tool used for turning work in lathes

That is another example of a time where closing periods make a lot of sense.

Now, there are a few possible responses that don't involve allowing periods I can see.

  • But look at the guideline about 'The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum!' If there are multiple sentences, you can chop out the extra ones to eliminate the problem.

Maybe in some cases, but there are currently lots of exceptions. This is especially true for "mini-stub" entries on disambiguation pages, where there is no article to link to and simply three sentences describing that sense of the term. Personally, I tend to prefer additional clarity, even at the expense of brevity. But even if you don't, can you say that the additional disambiguation provided by more sentences will always be unnecessary?

  • You can just chain semicolons together if you need multiple "sentences."

As the semicolon article says, this should really only be done for joining two sentences. Chaining 3+ sentences this way can start to look really silly, like an exhausted messenger out of breath attempting to say his report as quickly as he can.

Hopefully this proposed change will seem reasonable.

(Also, as an anti-confusion note, I should mention that the above chat on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Periods in list entries is poorly named, and out of date anyway. That discussion was actually about (initial) complete sentences vs. fragments, and that's something I've already made my peace with once I realized (from what others said in that thread) that the fragment was supposed to be connected to the header, and therefore was a complete sentence after all, in a fashion. Anyway, I don't agree with my past self anymore, so you can ignore that.) SnowFire 04:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the past - just for the sake of many arguments not being repeated, here are some of the previous discussions: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)/archive17#Help_please, Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)/archive10#Periods and Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)/archive4#Terminating_periods. -- Natalya 11:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. I'd already read "Help please"; as the frustrated person points out, that discussion more explained what the policy was but not the reasons behind it. Looking at "Periods", I see that the current policy came out of a desire to have some standard, even if it's arbitrary. This would be fair enough if every disambig entry really was a fragment, and it was entirely a stylistic choice as to how to end them (like I noted before, if it was only a matter of style, I wouldn't have posted). However, the existence of entries longer than a fragment provides a compelling reason to allow periods. If the no-punctuation close is still official, then editors would be left with the choice between violating the Manual of Style, having an inconsistent punctuation style within one page that mixes periods and no punctuation, or letting the multiple sentence entry trail off with no closing period. SnowFire 13:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This would be in line with many other styleguides that permit reasonable variance so long as it is consistent within an article and is not changed for no good reason, and periods are eminently appropriate in certain cases. —Centrx→talk • 03:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but the fact that the rules can be ignored within reason does not mean that an imperfect rule should be left on the books.
As an example why, I recently made some clean-ups to the Atalanta (disambiguation) and Atlanta (disambiguation). User:Usgnus then made edits that stripped the periods out of them (among some other generally reasonable changes) (diff and diff). Now, who am I to complain? He or she is following the style guide. I technically wasn't. It isn't something worth starting a revert war out of in the first place, but what if this was a page where periods were necessary?
I think a proper analogue is to the American vs. British English style debate. Yes, that can cause its own fair share of stupidity, but the general principle of "use the appropriate style for the topic; if there is none, then use the style of the last person who majorly wrote/created the article" is good. The current policy is the equivalent of "always use American English." As I maintain above, this would make sense if it was purely a stylistic choice and consistency was desired, but sometimes there are good, grammatical reasons to want to use periods. Thus I believe that internal page consistency is a more reasonable standard to set. SnowFire 18:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. I meant that the styleguide should either explicitly permit the variance or should say nothing about punctuation at all (though that may make it more likely that something strict could be added later). —Centrx→talk • 20:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

So, not to bump, but any other comments? While this change is minor, I would feel somewhat uncomfortable making a shift off of only two supporters. SnowFire 21:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really a fan of changing the MoS with this. Having one standardized method (no periods) makes things easier for all editors. And I think most disambiguation editors understand that when disambiguation pages need it, it's okay to ignore all the rules. I don't feel that there is a need for such an elastic clause in the MoS, as that would likely lead to too much variation. -- Natalya 02:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Trivia and redirects

The guideline should be more specific about not disambiguating articles through non-synonymous redirects, or trivia which will never have an article. Case in point: an edit war over adding Golden Boy (Seinfeld T-shirt) to Golden Boy (disambiguation). (And please vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Golden Boy (Seinfeld T-shirt)) —Michael Z. 2006-07-22 18:21 Z

(the redirect has been deleted, but it used to redirect to The Marine Biologist). Especially regarding {{R with possibilities}} redirects, I don't think there should be a blanket policy discouraging all of them... Most likely, the redlink policy should be applied to {{R with possibilities}} redirects (eg. they may be included only when an editor is confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the more detailed subject). --Interiot 03:18, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

AFD

Some disagreement over what to list / what not to list on this dab page. Input welcome: Talk:AFD. Thanks/wangi 16:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

USC

Is it wrong to separate DAB sections into American and Non-American groups? (If not, then we inevitably run into recurring debates about order). Basically, USC has become a habitual problem child. Input on talk page encouraged. Thomas B 15:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added my comment on the talk page, but it looks good. -- Natalya 21:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Images

Are we ever meant to have images on Dab pages? I presume not, but Halo has two, and I see nothing in the style/guidelines about images. --Quiddity•(talk) 18:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Only in rare, rare instances where the image assists in the disambiguation. Examples of this are Congo (disambiguation) and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation). Since the images at Halo do not, they should probably be removed. If you're interested, there was more discussion on this in the above section Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Images_to_disambig.3F. -- Natalya 20:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks :) And I agree with the last entry in that thread, by Commander Keane, that the line "Images are discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles" should be added to the style guide. --Quiddity•(talk) 21:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I've added it! -- Natalya 22:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I support this. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Likewise, it's rare that images aid a dabpage, but when they do it is a great aid. /wangi 23:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

dab to detect wrong links

Sometimes a topic is at "X" and it says for the something see X (something) and for something2 see X something2. Or it says for other X see X (disambiguation). Oe can consider to move the X then to X (something3) and turn X into the dab page. So all other pages that link X point to a dab now and their links have to be corrected and at the end will be more precise. This increases the link-quality of WP.

This also allows addition of future X (somethings) without then having to change all the wrong links.

Can this go into the guide? There also is a relation with primary topic. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I may be misunderstanding you, but are you suggesting that there are no primary topics anymore, and that all disambiguation pages for "Foo" are simply located an article name "Foo"? That kind of defeats the purpose of having a primary topic, but please elaborate if I've misinterpreted you. -- Natalya 15:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
(this caught an edit conflict) Its not completely clear to me what you are suggesting go in the guide. Is it "if disambiguation is needed for X, then it should always be on X and all other articles should be at X (something)?" The problem is if the primary target is a by far the more likely target among all the Xs, the person doing a search for it will always go through the dab page. Its not just the links we want high quality, we want the initial search to be efficient as well. Or perhaps I haven't interpreted your suggestion properly. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem is if the primary target is a by far the more likely target among all the Xs, the person doing a search for it will always go through the dab page.
this would be perfectly ok. Since being the far most important topic is IMO not enough for being a primary topic, i.e. having the right to reside at "X". Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
No, I don’t think that would be OK. In your scenario, you would force all visitors to have an extra click to navigate through the dab page, when most of them could have been taken to the correct page directly. You’re favoring the few over the many. Let’s consider the scenarios:
  1. Page [[X]] is a disambiguation page. Everybody who searches for “X” gets sent to that page and has to make one extra click to find the desired page. Everyone loses, although they all lose equally.
  2. Page [[X]] is an article about the most common meaning of the term, and there is a hatnote at the top directing visitors elsewhere. Most people — the visitors who were looking for information about the most common meaning — have arrived at the desired page without any extra clicks. They win. The others — whom I assert are in the minority — have either one or two extra clicks to make, depending on the kind of hatnote used:
    {{otheruses}}
    This requires two extra clicks: one to get to the disambiguation page, and one to go from there to the desired page. People who need this lose.
    {{for}} or {{two other uses}}
    This requires one extra click. So some visitors lose, but not any worse than they would have in the first scenario. (I really like these. When I encounter one, it makes me feel as though Wikipedia read my mind!)
--Rob Kennedy 07:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Kaffir

Please take a look into the Kaffir disambiguation page. It contains a collection of terms that involve the word "kaffir", such as Kaffir melon, Kafir harp and much more. Several my attempts of cleanup were reverted by the "owner and operator" of the page. I would like to have a second opinion. Thank you, Mukadderat 21:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I say go ahead and make it into a standards-following DAB page, and not the mess which it is now. – AmbigDexter 16:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

2CC/etc

So all the two/tree/four letter disambigs are being moved over to {{4CC}}, etc. [1] I'm a little lost as to where the discussion ended up, but I think there was some disagreement? Either way, I'm personally having a hard time understanding why Category:Lists of four-character combinations isn't a child of Category:Disambiguation. --Interiot 11:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. There was a whole lot of contentious discussions awhile back, but I don't recall any definitive conclusion that the abbreviation pages should be considered as separate from disambiguation pages. They are functionally identical to disambiguation pages. I have added the category to the templates. I don't know about the list categories. older ≠ wiser 13:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Huh, I thought they were subcategories of the main disambiguation category. Weird. Personally, I see no pressing need to split up disambiguation at all, but at the very least they should still be a part of the primary category.--SB | T 13:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I added them to Category:Disambiguation, but there's a chance they'll be reverted [2]. --Interiot 14:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
They should clearly be sub categories, I have slightly tweaked the category key so they appear on the first page as well. Martin 16:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
As long as the sub-categoriness is taken care of, it seems to be okay. Was the wording on the templates changed? They seem to reflect a wider range of things the page could be, and they link to disambiguation (thanks, Bkonrad :), so it seems to be better then it has been in the past.
I'm not super familiar with how subcategories work; as long as Category:Disambiguation lists Category:Lists of four-character combinations as a subcat, is it taken care of? -- Natalya 17:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I see no reason to have these, a bot just changed a bunch from {{disambig}}, and I found nothing convincing, just plain assertions without explanation, at the deletion discussion, [3], linked from Template talk:3CC. What is the purpose? —Centrx→talk • 21:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Because it is a good way of dividing an otherwise enourmous category. Martin 21:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't see why it would be necessary. Are certain people experts at two-letter abbreviations but not three-letter ones? Anyway, that could be done but retaining the same exact message on the disambiguation notice. —Centrx→talk • 21:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure about everyone else who has gone through this debate before, but I've always accepted it as a dead issue that wouldn't change... I'm all for all pages using {{disambig}}, because it is simple and standardizes everything, but there seems to be both agreements and disagreement from many fronts, never really ending in a solution. -- Natalya 04:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Even if someone wants them tagged specially, why not have the text be the same? —Centrx→talk • 05:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Because William Allen Simpson firmly believes they're not disambiguation articles. [4] I'm with Natalya, it seems like an issue that's left unresolved, but it didn't seem too bad that it was unresolved... sometimes 4CC's show up in {{disambig-cleanup}}, sometimes people change {{4CC}} to {{disambig}}, sometimes someone else changes them back, but it was always done at a slow non-warring pace... but if people are using bots to mass-change them, I didn't know if that changed the situation at all. --Interiot 02:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[unindenting] Because William Allen Simpson firmly believes they're not disambiguation articles. One has to wonder why on Earth he believes that.--SB | T 03:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

From his talk page:
The main differences are the templates (2CC, 3CC, 4CC), and the frequent use of explanatory links. Abbreviation pages are encyclopedic and need links, while disambiguation pages are non-encylopedic, essentially multiple redirects.
My take is that I certainly understand there are a number of experienced editors who see MOSDAB as arbitrary and who disagree with walking in lock-step with certain details of MOSDAB [5], but this seems like sort of an oblique way of expressing that. --Interiot 05:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
MOSDAB already allows for links necessary to help the reader understand where to go, perhaps there should be an addition explicitly recommending disambiguation pages having short descriptions for otherwise encyclopedic topics that do not yet have full articles? —Centrx→talk • 01:06, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

So, in other words: There's about one dedicated person who wants this, there is no other reason for it, and we should make some minor changes to the MOS and loosen it up a bit? —Centrx→talk • 01:06, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Every single one of these I have seen has unambiguously been a disambiguation page. There is no special need to have these classified differently or to have a different, complicated message about them. —Centrx→talk • 01:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hndis needs its own Manual

It seems to me that the logical consequence of having {{hndis}} recognised (which I voted for), is that 'human name disambiguation' should have its own guide. I am particularly concerned at recent interpretations of DAB rules, which do not at all fit current needs for surname lists. To clarify this I think in practice there is going to be a need to spell out things in a separate place, such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style (human name pages).
--Charles Matthews 16:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Care to elaborate? I assume this is in regard to Allen (surname). One the one hand, I think you are correct that it is an unwarranted extrapolation to use MOSDAB to justify nominating surname pages for deletion. On the other hand, a list of people with a particular surname certainly does overlap considerably with List of people by name. In the short term, I think we can clarify that such lists of surnames are not prohibited by MOSDAB (and even if they were, MOSDAB is only a guideline). For the longer term, we may want to consider whether dab pages should link to List of people by name rather than duplicating the listings.
--older ≠ wiser 17:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, I agree with the consideration that dab pages should link to List of people by name rather than duplicating the list. I also think that an entry about a surname ought to address that surname encyclopedicly (its history, notability) and not overlap into a dab page. If dab page redundancy with List of people by name, then at least Allen (surname) should be separate from Allen (disambiguation). See also the earlier "First name disambiguation" section, much of which is applicable even to surnames.
-- JHunterJ 17:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, transcluding lists by surname into list of people would make some sense to me. That's the way to make LOP more maintainable. But if it were fully maintained it would stretch to at least 1000 subdivided pages now: and it is just a red herring to discuss all this. As for an entry about a surname ought to address that surname encyclopedicly (its history, notability) and not overlap into a dab page, where we have information about onomastics it goes at the top of a surname page, followed by people listed by name if they are not excessive in number. That's the separate discussion about when lists stay on pages, and when they are free-standing. Again a red herring. The issue here is an AfD nomination, for a page which would be at most a weak case for a {{disambig-cleanup}} tag. On the whole, also, I am happier with X (surname) being disjoint from X (dab): dab pages are protean and hard to format, while surname pages are straightforward (and very valuable for some readers). But once more it's a red herring. I am arguing that if {{hndis}} is the correct template, then there should be proper guidelines for that case.
--Charles Matthews 18:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of what happens, it's clear that it's necessary to separate regular disambiguation pages from the human name lists. An okay example of this is Michael and Michael (disambiguation). The way I've seen it work best is that any listing of people takes place on the name page, not the disambiguation page. It's important that the lists don't appear on the actual disambiguation page.
-- Natalya 18:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that given names are different from family names. I don't really have a personal stake in listing by given name.
--Charles Matthews 20:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
If fuller guidelines are drafted, I would separate hunter (the simple noun) from from Hunter (given name), Hunter (surname), and List of people named Hunter. hunter (disambiguation) would include links to anyone who is commonly referred to by just "Hunter", the given name, and the surname (as well as the usual TV show, ceiling fan company, etc.). While the name entries would provide name meanings and histories. The list (or lists, if we would have one for Hunter Tylo and Hunter S. Thompson and another for Jeffrey Hunter and Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter) could be linked from the dab page and/or the name pages, as appropriate. Definitely keep the lists off whichever pages are being used as disambiguation pages. The current hunter (disambiguation) is a good example of the bad design.
-- JHunterJ 22:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the (immediately) above. To put it another way, we don't really need a different guideline for the hndis pages - most of the rules for regular dab pages apply. What we need are guidelines for name articles like Hunter (surname), Hunter (given name), etc. These pages can be useful, but if I'm looking for Patton, I'd rather not hunt through a long list of NNs to get to the right one (I moved George S. up recently).
--(John User:Jwy talk) 23:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
That's to suggest five types of page; which I suppose is the final stage of sorting things out. Not to be anti-perfectionist, but this is a practical matter. As I said above, splitting List of people with surname Hunter from Hunter (surname) is not the obvious move, and is anyway subject to existing policy (there are plenty of lists on topic pages). What about Patton? Some cases would have a redirect of the surname itself, and a separate page such as Patton (surname). That's OK, when there's consensus that Patton should redirect. But in any case it's a side issue.
--Charles Matthews 10:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
The main suggestion is to call lists lists. Hunter (surname) should cover encyclopedic information about the surname, not list all the entries of people with the surname Hunter, just as Canada should cover the country but not list all the entries of cities in Canada.
-- JHunterJ 11:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
CM speaks of "LOP" and "List of people", but surely means LoPbN. LOP is Lists of people, a page lking to a few hundred (mostly single-page) people lists; one of those lists is a tree-structured list, whose root is List of people by name and whose leaves comprise hundreds of reader-visible name-bearing pages. (The tree is supported by numerous non-name-bearing navigational pages, and by stunning numbers of structure-related templates). In particular, CM thinks "transcluding lists by surname into" List of people by name is promising. In "Transclusion into LoPbN?", a subsection of this one, i explain why transclusion into LoPbN of text suitable for most same-surname lists is currently simply not feasible. But see the sub-section also for better news.
--Jerzy•t 05:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
O/W (User:Bkonrad) wonders "whether dab pages should link to List of people by name rather than duplicating the listings" (and JHJ is pretty sure they should). In "Lk from Dabs into LoPbN?", a(nother) subsection of this one, i present information that makes me confident that doing so instead of listing names would hurt users. But see it also for better news.
--Jerzy•t 05:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

(Emerging consensus?)

Actually what the discussion here reveals is that there is some consensus that in principle keeping names separate from general disambiguation is good. I think you need a better analogy, also. This is not a paper encylopedia, but hypertext. That means navigation matters greatly. And I wonder if always making the reader click to go from X (surname) to list of people named X is doing the reader such a big favour. Charles Matthews 12:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think (and hope) you are right here: we are converging on an answer. My key concern is to keep dab pages focussed on their purpose and not be "busy" with other things. So maybe instead of a separate hndis style page we need a section here on how/when to link to these other name pages. That seems to be a quite reasonable thing. Such a policy should focus on the dab aspects: most people typing in X are not looking for some (more or less) obscure person with X in their name or information about the name itself (yes, there may be exceptions), they are looking for a particular and noteworthy person with X in their name. Having those few click once more is not that major a burden compared with all the others looking for a particular and noteworthy X.
--(John User:Jwy talk) 13:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

One more observation: the {{hndis}} template does not seem to "fit" the surname (or given name) disambiguation/list pages like it fits, say, John Smith (disambiguation). Maybe a new template is needed, or a tweak to the hndis language?
-- JHunterJ 18:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I can see a problem with List of people with surname Hunter type pages - what will happen with surnames that have more than one spelling? For example, Shepherd/Shephard/Shepperd/Sheppard - would that get one page, two pages or four? In my opinion, using List of people by name instead would avoid this problem, and make it easier for someone unsure of the correct spelling to scan all the possibilities.
--CarolGray 20:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, some of what is said here is an attempted refutation of The Long Tail thing, isn't it? That we can reasonably guess what the top searches are is one point; but that they should dominate thinking is another and much more tenuous argument. I think that's really quite suspect.
-- Charles Matthews 11:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

_ _ I'm not convinced that a separate MOS page is needed for human name disambiguation. What would such a page specify that would not fit within the framework of general disambiguation? I don't think there will (nor should) ever be a point where all ambiguous human names are separated from other ambiguous terms. Pages such as Allen (surname) came about as a strategy to make it easier to parse pages where there were long lists of human names mixed in with place names and other uses. On pages where there are only a few human names, there is little point to creating a separate page listing them. As such, if lists of ambiguous human names need some special consideration, I think we should try to incorporate the considerations into the general page. If these special considerations become so voluminous as to overwhelm the general page, then we can think about breaking them out onto a separate MOS page.
_ _ So far though, I don't see that anyone has offered any concrete suggestions for what special considerations are needed for human name disambiguation.
--older ≠ wiser 12:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
_ _ Attempt to sum up then.
  1. This was provoked by an AfD on the surname page Allen (surname), which cited WP:MOSDAB as justifying deletion of the page. So far the AfD has not seen any support beyond the proposer's. This suggests one of two things: that the WP:MOSDAB guidelines are subject to misreading, or, if they are being read in line with the intention, then the intention doesn't have community support.
  2. It seems pretty much common ground that some separation of name from general dab has advantages, but (as immediately above) it is not accepted that this means a blanket assumption about human names being segregated.
  3. There is the 'dab purist' argument that runs like this: on Clint you might want to find Clint Eastwood as a link, who might be referred to as 'Clint' often enough; but not all the Clints one can find.
  4. I don't hear much disagreement about that, for a given name such as Clint. On the other hand, at the AfD (and certainly I feel this strongly), one can read why listing by surname should not be subjected to such a principle. WP as a reference is used by people searching by surname only; they are not just looking to find Winston Churchill from Churchill, but more likely starting from W. Churchill in a textbook or paper, and wanting to see if WP has the Churchill in question.
  5. Conclusion from that: big cuts of surnames that have recently been made at Ellison and Adams are negatives, and if WP:MOSDAB seems to sanction them, some wording needs to be changed or added.
  6. Naming issue: X (surname) versus List of people with surname X. I don't see a big advantage in the verbose version. Segregating onomastics and etymology of names from the list by surnames may apply, but most lists by surname (thousands of those) have no need of that yet. Can it not wait?
  7. On top of that is the question whethere list of people by name should be the master listing by surname, and if so what can be done about a structure that has had problems being maintained. The argument about listing twice is a purist's again. I don't see much support for the line of discussion that people ought to maintain LOPBN, and therefore deletions of surnames elsewhere make sense. They do not, and absent a good discussion of the issues are not achieving anything.
_ _ Well, this is all special pleading about human names, really. It seems in my mind to warrant a single place of reference. The rationales coming from on navigation and aims of providing infrastructure and easy access, particularly on surnames, differ from what the purists will tell you dab pages are about.
Charles Matthews 13:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The discussion "Hndis needs its own Manual" continues in Archive 26.

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